Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Dicing carrots

It's not Tuesday yet, but since Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles; see Leviticus 23:33-44) starts on Tuesday this year, I decided to post early. :)

I buy the whole, unpeeled carrots since they're cheaper that way. When I'm making diced carrots, I first peel the carrots and trim the ends. Then, I slice into the thicker end, leaving the pieces attached to the smaller end as shown.

I start dicing at the large end, and finish at the small end, doing a handful of carrots at a time. This is what seems to work best for me... does anyone else have any better tricks for diced carrots? :)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Note: Please link to your individual post, not your blog's main/front page! Thanks for participating! :)

Comments

The other day my mil asked my dd to bring to a family gathering 2 lbs of peeled/cut carrots. We bought a 2 lb bag - my dd peeled and cut off the ends and then weighed them on my vintage postal scale. They only weighed 1 lb now!

Could all the peelings and ends have weighed that much?? If so, the peeled baby carrots at Aldi are actually cheaper. Especially when they go on sale for about 60 cents a bag.

I'm going to try it myself next time...perhaps my dd had eaten a few along the way...but it's worth checking out...

This week with the online coupon and the sale, you can get a bag of carrots at Target for free.
But on other weeks.... a few years ago my wrists stopped working when cutting carrots or potatoes. BUT the Pampered Chef Crinkle Cutter came to my rescue. Because it rocks, I can easily and quickly cut carrots in to medallions. I like to cut them diagonally so there's more surface area.

I am in love with my Pampered Chef chopper. It makes short work of dicing carrots (I buy the baby ones at Aldi), onion quarters, garlic, nuts, chocolate etc.

I love it for making stews/soups. I wore out the first one I had (the plastic guard cracked), so I threw it away. I then tested about 4-5 other nice name brands, and none of them are engineered like the Pampered Chef one. THEN I found out that the PC one had a lifetime warranty. :) So I bought another one. They will replace parts when this one wears out.

I like it that it can go in the dishwasher, and that it opens all the way out to really get it clean.

I don't sell Pampered Chef stuff...but this is just one of my favorite kitchen items.

I wash and scrub organic baby carrots with a vegetable brush but do not peel them (I just chop off the end).

However, if you do prefer them peeled, I hear that there is a fabulous "gadget" that you put on your finger and then slide your finger up and down the carrot to peel. It's supposed to be really efficient: not waste much carrot and be quick!

I also save my carrot tops (the leaves) for making chicken stock (put them washed and dried in the freezer in a freezer bag until you're ready). The tops would also go well in other soups or can be sauteed with the carrots.

I don't find that baby carrots have as much flavor as real carrots.

Last - try roasting carrot "french fries" at 450ºF - they caramelize and are awesome! I especially like this technique with multi-colored carrots; it's fun!

I totally went through the normal world knowing it was monday, but in bloggy land I thought it was tuesday. I posted my KTT and then wondered why there weren't many kitchen tips. Duh!!! It was monday. I was totally thrown off by your early post. Oh, well. I didn't have a menu plan anyways.